


The Brains, the Brawn, the Failure

by Vrunka



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-10
Updated: 2019-04-10
Packaged: 2020-01-07 15:33:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18413534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vrunka/pseuds/Vrunka
Summary: Archie is going to make the world a better place. There’s only one person who can mess up his whole plan and its someone he would never expect...himself.





	The Brains, the Brawn, the Failure

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the PokeVillains Zine, Team Aqua section

The world they will create will be perfect. Archie can taste it. His victory, waiting just beyond the cave.

No.

No, not his victory. Everyone’s victory. His team and Shelly and Matt and the entire world. Kyogre will make it a better place. A perfect place.

Archie thinks of the wish he had made, so many years ago. Shelly, rolling her eyes, as Archie had scrawled it on the paper. A better place for Pokémon, a world for them.

Jirachi hadn’t granted the wish the way Archie expected; but the tools have been laid out for him.

All that’s left is to use them.

To take them into his own hands.

The air of the Seafloor Cavern is cool and wet. Archie wipes his brow as he makes his way deeper. He will lay claim to his destiny.

He will make the world clean again; for Pokémon for people. All that’s left is to do it. To be done with it.

The heart of the cavern yawns before him.

Archie takes a breath and he descends.

—

The boat pitches, violently. Raging waves, salty and foaming as they break upon the deck. Rage.

Anger.

To match the temperament of the awakened ancient.

Kyogre’s wrath.

The end of the world.

Archie looks out at the restless sea, the driving rain stinging his eyes, soaking his beard. The rail of the ship beneath his hands is the only thing keeping him from being tossed overboard.

Shelly stands next to him.

Her fingers touching his, gripping the wood so hard her knuckles bulge. White. Fearful.

She has always been the smartest of them, Archie’s clever right hand. A pillar of strength and of wit to be looked up to.

Archie has never seen her frightened, well and truly frightened, until now.

She is trembling.

Her shoulders are shaking.

And what can Archie say?

That he is sorry? That he didn’t mean for this to happen? It feels hollow on his tongue, bitter. Useless. Shelly is smart enough; she would see through any attempt at deflecting this situation.

Archie had wanted this.

And now he has it.

He closes his eyes.

Lightly, something touches his shoulder. Could almost be mistaken for the rain, the pelting madness of it, but the pressure hits and stays and when Archie opens his eyes, Shelly is holding his arm and looking up at him.

“It’s not—,” she begins to say. Her hair is drenched, hangs down in her eyes. The boat heaves, her fingers leave him.

“I know you just wanted what was best,” she says. Yelling to be heard over the sound of the ocean beneath them, the noise of the rain splattering on the hardwood of the deck. Drowning out her voice. Drowning out everything.

Drowning.

“Is that what history will remember?” Archie asks. Though history is boiling down to an end. Kyogre’s reset; a world so wholly different than what Archie had envisioned.

And Shelly had told him that too.

He had just been too idealistic—stupid, blinded, brash—to listen.

Shelly is staring at him, eyes narrowed. Lip caught between her teeth.

“History will remember a man who tried,” she says. “And who kept trying even after. You aren’t giving up, are you, boss?”

She never calls him that. That isn’t their relationship, their friendship. Her calling him that now is a rallying, a show of faith and trust. She still believes in some part of him even after all that has gone so wrong. 

Archie sighs, shakes his head.

“That kid isn’t giving up either,” she says. “We have to do everything we can to support them.”

Archie nods. His fingers clench. Shelly’s wisdom, imparted to him once more.

Everything they can.

Archie will give it everything he has.

—

“Knew you’d come back for me, boss,” Matt says. Grinning as two grunts reach down to pull him aboard. Not that he needs the help, the muscles of his chest ripple as he clambers onto the ship.

His wet suit is still shiny and slick from the torrent that had sprang forth when Kyogre had. His short hair is still plastered to his head.

Their shield. He has always been Team Aqua’s shield and Archie should maybe feel guilty for that on top of everything else but he...

It’s too much.

Matt grins, pulls one of the grunts into a hug that has Archie’s own back twinging in sympathy.

“Did you see all the rain, bro?” he asks, grabbing Archie by the shoulder once he’s close enough, large fingers curling around Archie’s bicep. His mouth stretched into a grin, all teeth and undisguised joy. “It’s started, we’ve done it.”

The grunts have the decency to look away when he says it. The girl scratches at the back of her neck. The boy studies his feet.

Matt doesn’t get it. Doesn’t notice or see it or...or or something. Always the most optimistic on top of everything else. Some people see that as weakness—as stupidity—but Archie has learned time and time again the value of it.

Matt is their shield and their hope.

And now Archie must dash that.

Must stomp it out.

Because the dream is dead. Killed. Kyogre writhing in the deep; uncontrolled, wild anger and sea salt palpable in the air.

That kid had stood up to it where Archie had failed.

Matt is still smiling, but his head is cocked now. His eyebrows coming together.

“Boss?” He says again. “Are you—“

Archie is shaking. Biting his lip. The wave of sadness as bitter on his tongue as the sea. Intrusive and unyielding as the tide.

He pulls away.

“It’s over,” he says. Rougher than he means to. The girl grunt flinches; the boy turns away. “Over. Don’t you get that?”

Matt shakes his head. Betrayal etched in the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. His lip caught in his teeth. “Bro,” he says again, gentler, hand reaching for Archie’s arm once more.

Archie stalks away before he can.

His feet take him to his office below deck. The windows in the port side so he can look out into the ocean. It makes him feel sick. Curls in his stomach like food gone over.

He has failed them.

All of them.

When the grunts come down to tell him later that Matt has left; Archie is surprised, a little hurt. Their shield, gone now, along with the dream.

So be it. So be it.

His fingers curl around the key stone around his neck. The pokeballs with his beloved team inside of them, he touches each one in turn. He had only wanted to make a better place for them. For all of them.

Matt is gone. Shelly will go.

The dream is dead.

So little left for the world to take. So be it. So be it.


End file.
